Obituaries

Eva Goodwin of Santa Rosa, California passed peacefully after a long battle with a variety of illnesses on April 7, 2011 at the age of 81. She was born in Vienna, Austria, the onlychild of Erwin and Piri Stanton. They moved to New York in October of 1938, after the invasion of Austria.

Eva graduated, Phi Beta Kappa, with a degree in History and Fine Arts from Oberlin College in 1951. She loved Oberlin and supported them throughout her life. She then went to the University of Chicago Law School and received her Juris Doctorate in 1954.

Eva married Jim Goodwin in 1959 they lived in Berkeley until 2007 when they moved to Santa Rosa to reside at Friends House, a Quaker Retirement Community.

She served as a staff attorney for the Oregon Legislative Counsel, and then moved to Berkeley to take a position as judicial staff attorney for the California Court of Appeal where she worked until her retirement in 1988. She spent the summer of 1979 as a Legal Fellow at Harvard Law School, under the auspice of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Eva wrote the first training manual for Judicial Staff Attorneys. She mastered the technique of legal writing and research and was a mentor to many women who were entering the field of law. She was often asked to serve as a Small Claims Judge on the Berkeley-Albany Municipal Court.

Eva was an active participant and advocate for consumers, affirmative action and women’s affairs. She was one of the principal founders of the Judicial Attorneys of California, a professional organization that represented attorneys at all levels in both State and Federal courts. She served on the Prison Committee of the American Friends Service Committee, and the Board of the Berkeley Co-op. She was president and co-founder of TURN (Toward Utility Rate Normalization), and a member of the Friends of the Marin Fountain and the Northern California Association to Save Bodega Head and Harbor. Eva was appointed by Governor Edmund G. Brown Sr. to the State Consumer Advisory Committee. In 1977, she filed an amicus brief on behalf of the National Association of Affirmative Action Officers in Bakke v. Regents of the University of Californiarepresenting minorities and women.

When Eva retired from law she went back to her first love which was painting with watercolors, and became a successful commissioned artist exhibiting and selling works with the Richmond Art Center, the French Laundry Group and others. She always took her sketch books and her paints and brushes on vacations and weekend trips to her beloved cabin in Inverness. She also enjoyed reading, theater, opera, early music concerts, traveling, cooking, gardening and swimming. She loved to put on large dinner parties and cookie bakes for children during the holidays.

Eva is survived by her husband James Goodwin; son, David Goodwin of San Mateo; daughter, Leah Goodwin of San Diego; four grandchildren, Adrianna Farmer of Vista; Azaleah Ashmore of San Diego; Midori Greenwood-Goodwin of Palo Alto; and Amaal Greenwood-Goodwin of San Mateo. Two great-grandsons, Christopher Farmer and Thomas Ashmore, and a great-granddaughter, Lealani Ashmore, also survive her.